


wherever you go

by apolliades



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Drunk Sex, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 23:27:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5434790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apolliades/pseuds/apolliades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Why didn’t you choose to take treasure?"<br/>“I did. You are my treasure.”</i>
</p><p>a handful of moments in their lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	wherever you go

**Author's Note:**

> this is a bit drabble-y and unstructured -- just little snippets i decided to pull together to publish in one thing.

“Why didn’t you choose to take treasure?” Athelstan asks one night, when they are warm together in the nest of furs on Ragnar's bed, and so close to sleep he may have been dreaming, and simply not quite able to tell.

Ragnar turns to him, and smiles.

“I did. You are my treasure.”

\--

Ragnar leads Athelstan around on a rope like a dog. He has him sit at his feet like a dog. He calls him  _good boy_  like he is a dog.

And then one day Ragnar cuts the rope. And yet Athelstan finds himself, still, following. Like a dog at his heels. 

It doesn’t take him long to realise that wherever Ragnar goes, Athelstan will always follow.

It takes him longer to stop hating himself for it. To realise that it is not out of weakness he does this, or out of fear; it is out of love. It is out of devotion.

God must have a plan for them, he thinks. God must have put them together for a reason. Their paths are linked, he thinks. They are bound together, for better or for worse, whether they want to be or not.

Ragnar seems as though he wants to be. He pays more attention to Athelstan almost than to anyone else; every moment he has spare is spent in Athelstan’s company, pestering him with questions like a child. He wants to learn about England. He wants to learn to speak English, so that he might sail West again and speak with the Englishmen. 

Athelstan teaches him. Ragnar is a clever man, and learns quickly, and eagerly. He sits and watches Athelstan speak with his eyes blue as ice fixed on his face, on the shapes of his mouth, and his wrists draped over his knees. 

In exchange, Ragnar teaches him to fight. To wield a sword, an axe, a shield. Athelstan is weak at first, and the weapons feel strange and heavy to him. His movements are ungainly, and he stumbles often. But like Ragnar, he learns fast. He becomes strong. One day, he knocks Ragnar’s feet out from under him and presses the tip of his sword to his throat. Ragnar’s grin is bright as the winter sun. He looks proud.

-

One day he takes Athelstan’s wrists in his hands and turns them to look at his palms. Athelstan has little bumps on the sides of his fingers from when he used to paint the letters into holy books. Now he has them on his palms too, rough hardened blisters from wielding weapons, from far heavier work. Some of the blisters have broken from their day of practise, and bleed gently.

“Your hands are growing rough,” Ragnar comments, holding one of Athelstan’s hands up and lining his own along it. His hands dwarf Athelstan’s. “Like mine.”

Athelstan looks at him, feeling the warmth of his palm and the roughness of his skin. 

“Like a warrior,” Ragnar says, and smiles. His smile is knowing. Maybe on its way to deviousness.

“I’m not sure I will ever be a warrior,” Athelstan smiles back; his smile is soft and does not reach his eyes. “At least not like you.”

“No,” Ragnar concedes, “perhaps not like me.”

Athelstan ducks his head. Ragnar keeps their hands pressed together, and with his other tucks a finger under his chin and coaxes his head upwards.

“But perhaps that is not such a bad thing.”

Athelstan blinks at him like an owl. He looks curious. “You are a good man, Ragnar.”

Ragnar tilts his head from side to side and hums. “I’m not so sure,” he says. His hand rests on Athelstan’s shoulder, where it meets his neck. His thumb brushes the soft warm skin of his throat. “I think I should quite like to be more like you.”

Athelstan colours a little, but his gaze holds steady. Ragnar likes to see him blush. He likes to see his cheeks glow pink and warm. Sometimes when he has been drinking and is lying beneath Ragnar, stripped and flushed and hot, he blushes all the way down his chest, towards his navel. Ragnar likes that the best. He likes to follow the blush with his mouth from Athelstan’s cheeks to his throat to his collarbones to his stomach. He likes to make him wriggle and squirm and blush even darker.

-

  
_“I like you like this,” Ragnar tells him, as he climbs up onto the bed and takes Athelstan by the hips and pulls him effortlessly towards him. Athelstan blinks up at him slowly, eyelids heavy. He grins lazily, and arches against the bed, and hums._

_ “Weak as a kitten. All mine to mould and move however I like.” _

_ Athelstan is drunk, and has never had much of a tolerance for it. It makes him floppy and pliant and warm. One of Ragnar’s secret favourite things to do is to ply Athelstan with spirits and take him to bed and watch him squirm and blush and grin, all thin heavy limbs and slow kisses and pink blushed skin.  _

_ “I’m always all yours,” Athelstan murmurs thoughtlessly. Ragnar likes that, too – likes that drunkenness makes him lose control of his words, lose his caution and his inhibitions and speak the first things into his head. Sometimes he forgets Ragnar’s language and speaks to him in his own, but Ragnar doesn’t mind. He’s slowly beginning to learn English, with Athelstan’s guidance. And the foreign words make him seem all the more exotic, remind Ragnar of where he came from, who he is, how much he has changed. How much he has become Ragnar’s.  _

_ “Is that so?” he grins, nudging Athelstan’s thighs apart so he can kneel between them and lean over him, hands planted either side of his face. “I thought you were a free man.” _

_ Athelstan pulls a face, nose scrunching up, mouth curling. It’s cute; Ragnar puts his finger on the tip of his nose and it scrunches further.  _

_ “Yes..” he bats at Ragnar’s hand, “yes, I am, but..” _

_ His brain is slow with drink. He feels stupid, but he doesn’t mind it.  _

_ “But still mine,” Ragnar says, and it is not a question. It’s simply a truth. And it’s true as well that Ragnar is as much Athelstan’s as Athelstan is his, even if he hasn’t quite voiced it out loud. He lets his fingertip drag from Athelstan’s nose to rest in the dip above the bow of his lip. “All mine.” _

_ Athelstan grins and opens his mouth to bite at Ragnar’s finger. So he pushes another into his mouth as well, along the flat of Athelstan’s tongue, and his breath comes out hot and sharp on Ragnar’s palm.  _

_ “I like that you are mine,” Ragnar tells him, pressing his fingers deeper into his mouth, making him suck and lick and swallow. “I like you drunk and pliant and open to me.” _

_ Athelstan’s lips become wet with spit. Ragnar withdraws his fingers and he gasps as if he’s breathing for the first time in his life.  _

_ “You don’t have to make me drunk, for that,” he murmurs, and Ragnar grins. _

_ “No, I don’t,” he agrees, unlacing Athelstan’s trousers, “but it’s fun, don’t you think?” _

_ Athelstan suddenly doesn’t have the breath to answer, as Ragnar pushes fingers inside of him. _

_ They lie together slowly and lazily and languidly, because the whole night is theirs and tonight, there is nothing else for them to do.  _

-

“More like me? Why?” Athelstan’s gaze flickers briefly to where their hands are still pressed against each other. Sweat and blood has made their skin damp and warm and slippery, but he doesn’t move his hand away. He doesn’t want to. Ragnar’s touch feels comforting and grounding.

When they had met, he hadn’t for a second thought Ragnar would ever touch him so gently. But he does it often, now; touches him like he’s something precious, to be handled carefully. Sometimes he’ll smack him on the shoulder or wrap an arm around his neck or dig his nails hard into his hips or bite at his throat til he bruises. But sometimes his hands are as light and soft as a ghost’s. Sometimes his kisses are deep and wet and leave Athelstan gasping. Ragnar likes to tease him with gentleness, to watch his face change from open-mouthed surprise to hungry and desperate when he withholds what he wants, when he makes them go slow. 

“I am—weak. In many ways,” his fingers twitch a little, “you are strong, and you know your own mind.”

Ragnar makes a  _tsch_  sound with his tongue on the back of his teeth. “You are not weak, my priest. You are one of the bravest men I have met—” when Athelstan opens his mouth to protest, he says, “—no, listen to me, Athelstan. Who else could have been captured in battle, seen what you have seen, and come out strong and whole on the other side? And you are wise. You have travelled. You have taught me many things. You have even saved my life, once or twice.” 

He leans a little closer, almost imperceptibly. 

“And still, you are good. You are kind, and generous, and… you are righteous. You are uncorrupted. I think you may be incorruptible, my friend.”

At that, Athelstan’s smile splits into a grin, wide and warm and making his eyes crease at the corners.

“I’m not so sure about that,” he says, “I think you may have corrupted me.”

Ragnar’s arctic eyes sparkle. He turns his hand just enough to close his fingers through Athelstan’s. 

“And you me,” he grins right back, all teeth and wrinkles. Then he sits forwards and kisses Athelstan on the mouth, open and soft. He tastes of salt from sweat and dust and blood. The first time he had kissed him that taste had made Athelstan flinch. It had seemed sour and dirty on his tongue. Now it is familiar and warm, but still sends thrills up and down his spine.

\--

“You know, Athelstan, if I could marry you instead, I would.”

They’re lying together under a tree, in a rare moment of peace. Ahead but far away enough not to notice them, Ragnar’s wife plays with their children. Ragnar’s hands are folded behind his head and their thighs are touching.

“That would be a sin,” Athelstan comments, off handedly.It makes Ragnar laugh, so he laughs too. 

“You and your sins.”

In a moment, in one quick movement, Ragnar is on top of him, nose to nose. Athelstan sucks in a breath.

“Is this a sin?” Ragnar asks, and kisses his mouth.

“Yes,” Athelstan says, even as he’s arching his back to try to press their mouths together again, “definitely.”

“So you are a sinner,” Ragnar tells him, and his chest aches, and the crucifix he still wears hidden inside his shirt feels hot on his skin, so he digs his fingers into Ragnar’s shirt and presses up against him.

“Yes,” he breathes, opening his mouth against Ragnar’s, letting him bite and lick at him, “you are my sin.”

That makes Ragnar laugh at him again. Athelstan doesn’t quite understand what is funny, but he doesn’t ask. There’s a lot he doesn’t understand. But it's alright. He can learn.

 


End file.
